Boulogne-Billancourt, 12 February 2008
Meetic, the European leader in online dating, today announced consolidated revenue for the year to 31 December 2007.
Consolidated revenue came to €31.2m in the fourth quarter of 2007, thus recording continued strong growth of 41.5% over the fourth quarter of 2006. Full-year revenue came to €113.8m, an increase of 44.5% over the previous year, or 47.2% on pro forma figures. Historical businesses continued to perform well, with organic growth of 22.4%. The company generated 94.1% of its revenue in Europe and 5.9% in the rest of the world, compared to figures of 92% and 8% respectively in 2006.
Internet revenue
Internet revenue, generated from the group’s internet services using the subscription model, came to €107.3m, an increase of nearly 50%.
– Changes in the scope of consolidation
As a result of the aggressive growth strategy conducted by the Group, as it has strengthened its leading position in Europe and increased the segmentation of its client base, the scope of the internet business changed radically over the course of 2007 with the consolidation of DatingDirect on 29th January 2007 and Cleargay on 1st October 2007.
– Positive indicators point to success of the new business model
The new offering, Meetic 2.0, was initially launched in France in February and was then rolled out to the other major European countries where the group is active over the course of the year. The successful deployment of Meetic 2.0 has been reflected in a substantial improvement in user metrics for Meetic’s European sites:
- a significant increase in average monthly revenue per user (ARPU), which ran at €17.74 in the second half of 2007 (€17.5 in the first half) against €16.66 at end-2006.
- a marked drop in monthly subscriber churn, to 14.57% in the second half of 2007 (16.1% in the first half) against 16.3% at end-December 2006. This churn, which is the lowest level ever attained by the group, is the result of a shift in the product mix towards more long-term subscriptions.
The Group’s subscriber base stood at 577,255 by end-2007, up 35.4% on a year earlier. The traditionally strong seasonal fluctuation in the fourth quarter, which sees a slowdown in subscription activity in the final months of the year — together with a seasonal reduction in advertising expenditure — explains why this figure is more or less stable compared to the subscriber numbers for the third quarter of 2007.
Mobile revenue
– Continued refocusing of eFriendsnet
As announced in the first half of 2007, the eFriendsnet business was significantly affected by changes in the sales policies of Chinese mobile operators, which made conversion and retention of mobile service subscribers harder. The new eFriendsnet site, yeeyoo.com, which now operates a business model based on no charge to users and revenue generation through advertising sales, has been online since December 2007.
– Strong growth for Meetic Mobile
Growth in mobile businesses remained strong across Europe thanks to the distribution of Meetic Mobile. This resulted in 73% revenue growth, to €3.4m, over the course of 2007. This is testament to Meetic’s position as a pioneer in the very fast-moving mobile market in Europe. Meetic Mobile now contributes over 3% of total revenue.
Marc Simoncini, Chairman, CEO and founder of Meetic, remarked: „continued strong growth across all businesses, the success of our Meetic V2.0 offering and the positive trends in our main indicators all enabled us to moderate our marketing expenditure during the fourth quarter, a period during which advertising is generally more expensive. The strong profitability we expect to record for the second half, should therefore allow the Group to report an EBITDA margin in line with that in 2006.“